Positive organizational behavior: an idea whose time has truly come

✍ Scribed by Thomas A. Wright

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 58 KB
• Volume: 24
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0894-3796
• DOI: 10.1002/job.197

✦ Synopsis

It is as if [applied] psychology had voluntarily restricted itself to only half its rightful jurisdiction, and that the darker, meaner half.

Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality (1954: p. 354) The concept of a 'positive psychology' is rapidly gaining momentum in both psychology (Seligman, 1999) and organizational behavior (Luthans, 2002a(Luthans, , 2002b(Luthans, , 2003)). Highly reminiscent of the quote from Maslow (1954), Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000, p. 5) more recently suggested that the purpose of positive psychology 'is to begin to catalyze a change in the focus of psychology from preoccupation only with repairing the worst things in life to also building positive qualities.' Relatedly, but adopting a more utilitarian, cost-benefit perspective emphasizing the goal of enhanced workplace performance, Luthans (2002aLuthans ( , 2002b) ) clearly noted the need for a more relevant, proactive approach to organizational research, which he termed positive organizational behavior (POB). More specifically, Luthans (2003, p. 179) defined POB as 'the study and application of positively oriented human resource strengths and psychological capacities that can be measured, developed, and effectively managed for performance improvement in today's workplace.'

Demonstrating the dire need for a POB approach, Luthans (2002b), in a computer search of contemporary literature in psychology, found approximately 375 000 articles on 'negatives' (i.e., mental illness, depression, anxiety, fear and anger), but only about 1000 articles on various positive concepts and capabilities of people. This constitutes a negative/positive publication ratio of approximately 375 to 1! These alarming findings are even more perplexing when one considers that Maslow (1954) first introduced the term 'positive psychology' almost 50 years ago. In fact, in his seminal book titled Motivation and Personality, Maslow (1954) actually titled the last chapter 'Toward a Positive Psychology.' In this final chapter, as well as in the appendix, Maslow diligently laid out a research agenda proposing investigation of such 'new' and 'central' psychological concepts as growth, self-sacrifice, love, optimism, spontaneity, courage, acceptance, contentment, humility, kindness, and actualization of potential. One can readily observe that his agenda for research was highly similar to that more recently presented by Seligman and his colleagues (cf.